The present application relates to consumable welding components such as cored welding wire electrodes, and more particularly to methods and arrangements for analyzing and determining the composition of cored welding wire electrodes, comprised of an outer metal jacket and an inner core of a filler material.
In the art of electric arc welding, it is common practice to use welding processes, wherein a cored welding wire electrode is advanced toward a workpiece, while an electric arc is created between the cored wire electrode, and the workpiece, for the purpose of melting the end of the wire electrode to deposit metal onto the workpiece. The composition of the wire electrode, the fluxing system, the type of electrical current, the shielding gas and other factors are adjusted to obtain the desired welding objectives. Such welding processes involve highly developed and sophisticated technology, including the precise composition of the wire electrode consumed in the welding process, where different compositions and/or characteristics of the filler and outer jacket are used for specific welding applications. By manipulating the composition and concentration of materials which comprise the filler as well as the type of metal jacket used, particular welding operations may be achieved.
More particularly, dependent upon the actual composition and other characteristics of the filler material and metal jacket, variables such as heat, voltage levels, speed, etc. may be adjusted to achieve in the desired welding output. Therefore, it is beneficial to know the composition and characteristics of the cored welding wire electrode.
One procedure is to infer the characteristics of the cored welding wire electrode from the known make-up, such as obtained from existing literature, of the raw materials used to manufacture the metal jacket, and the filler material. An alternative procedure is to perform actual analysis of the outer metal jacket and core filler material, separately, prior to forming the cored welding wire electrode. This can be accomplished using known analysis techniques. The results of the analysis are then used to estimate the characteristics of cored welding wire electrode. Still a further technique is to take a portion of a manufactured cored welding wire electrode, and separate the outer jacket and filler material, then the filler material and outer metal jacket are separately analyzed as in the prior procedure.
Each of the foregoing procedures suffer from inaccuracies, as related to the analytical techniques used and/or the assumptions made while performing the inferential or estimate-based calculations. Further, the foregoing procedures are performed on wire physically and temporally distant from the wire electrode being consumed in the welding process.
Therefore, it is considered desirable to provide new procedures and arrangements by which cored welding wire electrodes are directly and more accurately analyzed in order to determine their effect upon the welding process. It is also desirable for the analysis to take place, such that it is closely associated with the actual portions of the cored welding wire electrode being used in the welding process.